How we connect and gather at work has been drastically disrupted after COVID-19, and new ways of working have been introduced. With the emerging remote working and hybrid models, how will companies create a positive culture in 2023 and beyond, as we move towards a more digital age? Read on to learn more! 

Why is it important to connect and gather your teams?


After being forced to work more digitally (zoom fatigue, anyone?) during the worldwide COVID-19 lockdown, new ways of working emerged as people realized that working in a physical office from 9-5 might not be a good fit for their productivity or efficiency. People wanted to have the freedom to work wherever they wanted, at whatever time (allowing employees to stay true to their nocturnal and diurnal patterns) and started to demand that their jobs adjust to their lifestyle – and not the other way around. This is a trend that’s unlikely to disappear, according to a World Economic Forum report that finds that 73% of employees desire permanent flexible work options.

As the work environment shifts to accommodate flexible, hybrid and remote working patterns, a robust infrastructure for asynchronous work is required. 

Teams have identified other new needs, too: after distancing and connecting over zoom, employees craved intentional and meaningful connection with their colleagues and/or teams from afar. Inclusion and a sense of belonging became crucial to empower employees to feel autonomous, seen and heard. 

To adjust for flexible work options while maintaining a strong culture, meaningful gathering is crucial. If done properly, it will unlock myriad benefits, such as: enhancing connectivity and culture, strengthening the sense of belonging and kinship, better collaboration, and the creation of a safe space to discuss ideas and show up as your authentic self, which in turn can increase employee engagement.

Wouldn’t you be more inclined to spitball more ideas if you knew that you were accepted fully for who you are amongst your colleagues? I mean, daring to share foolish ideas is definitely so much easier when I know that my abilities won’t be questioned just because I present some wild ideas! 

Ok ok, so we’ve established the importance of gathering. But how do you ensure you arecreating meaningful connections for your team? What tools should you use? What apps exist? It can be so confusing to find the proper way for your teams to connect digitally, but it’s something that’s so worthwhile if you ace it! Here are some steps for you to follow, to help you along: 

Whether it’s about producing impactful events or designing better products or services, we all know it’s important to understand your clients and customers. Who is your target group? I experienced that applying the “KYC (know your customers)” approach to your teams was pivotal in choosing the right tools and format for gathering to help you achieve intentional connectivity. 

So go ahead, get to know your team better! Observe them (although not in a capital surveillance sneaky way 😇). Who are they? How do they interact with each other? What ways do they want to be connected? What do they geek about? What topics and activities excite them? Are they a creative bunch who like to draw, or do they like to solve mathematical riddles? Or both? Are they distributed across different time zones? How much are they able to dedicate their time to an activity? How much time are they “allowed” to spend to sign in? Do they need to spend time on installing things? How tech savvy are they? And how interactive do they want to be? 

Once you get a strong idea of who they are, identify what their needs are for connecting. What is the purpose of gathering them? Is it to introduce them to each other, if they are a new team? To welcome new joiners? To connect team members across departments, who have yet to speak with each other? To facilitate deeper and more intentional conversations that go beyond surface levels? 

If you get Steps 1 and 2 right, you can choose the right tools to create the most impactful gatherings and facilitate the right connections. Look at it as if you’re creating a date: if you want to make the person feel seen, you want to make sure that you create a date that excites them and is customized to who they are, right? I mean, if you know your date is scared of heights, you’re not going to take them out to sky-dive. Unless you want to break up with them 😈

Choose an activity, determine the duration, your budget and how to be a host to guide them through the activity. Below are some suggestions on what to choose, given how your team behaves and what their needs are: 

If your team is a bunch of geeks who want their knowledge to be tested and challenged, choose to play a topical quiz. 

If you want to facilitate team bonding, where people can work together to find the right answers, choose some more obscure trivia.

If you have new joiners, icebreakers are good for introductory conversations that go beyond “Hi my name is X and I do Y” 

If you want to connect colleagues across teams and departments, who haven’t spoken together before, icebreakers are good to facilitate that conversation. It can potentially help them detect common ground beyond the company they are working at. 

If you want to facilitate more meaningful and deeper conversations within teams, for a chance to get each other even more, choose some more personal icebreakers. 

Icebreakers are helpful for those who are not naturally talkers and need to have their conversations guided by questions to help them come out of their shells. 

If your team is more private and don’t want to be forced to open up, playing games can be a natural conversation starter for them. For some, it can be easier to open up without having to share details from their private lives. 

If your team has been through some intense deadlines lately and needs to let loose, games are a good activity to have them use other parts of their brains in a more relaxing yet stimulating way. 

If you want to facilitate team bonding, find out how competitive your team players are by playing games in teams together and against each other. 

Live classes, e.g. cooking classes, croquis drawing, poem writing, journaling exercises: 

If your team is keen on doing something beyond the screen together, you can book a live class to learn a creative skill – or encourage someone from your team with hidden talents within the arts to host an activity themselves! Learning something new together is a great way to create common ground.

Live entertainment, e.g. magician, hypnotist, comedian or artist: 

If your team just want to let loose, not use their brains, but still share an experience beyond work, hiring a live entertainer might be the right choice. Having your team be baffled by how they got tricked by the magician or hypnotist will be the talking points for ages! 

Keep the type and format of the activities varied, so you don’t repeat the same activity again and again and avoid boring your team (we all reach a threshold of how many quizzes we can bear!) Other than that, your task is simply to make sure that they have fun and get to know each other. Ready, set, go! 

Why and how to connect your teams in 2023 and beyond

In this series, Doozy founder Milo speaks with leaders and experts in HR & People Management to ask about their absolute essentials when stuck on a desert island. Discover the newest insights from the remote work world and get the knowledge you need to create a high-performance and happy remote culture.

This week, we heard from Lauren Ernst from SEVENROOMS.

Milo: What got you into working on the People team?

When I realized that I could marry my love for enablement, events, internal communications, and employee experience into one role, I knew that working on the People team was where I needed to be. Each day is vastly different, but keeping people at the heart of everything I do, never changes. 

Milo: Talk us through each of your 5 picks, from most important to least. Why did you pick it, and why couldn’t you live without it?

Less is truly more. 
🧠 I adore email for more formal communication. 
For messaging that involves action items, company-wide/role-agnostic details, and content that folks may need to reference again and again, an email is a great tool. 
❤️ Slack for in-the-moment messages/voice notes/video posts.
Nothing beats posting engaging or collaborative content in slack, where team members can react with emojis or start a thread to dive in deeper. 
☎️ Phone/huddles for real-time brainstorming, context gathering, and clarification.
Hearing someone’s voice is truly priceless. If a slack or email post sparks follow-up questions or a need for clarification, a phone call or slack huddle can really help shine a light on intention and context. It will also save you time!

Milo: What other tools do you dream about, while looking at the stars and wishing you had more credits on your card?

Got a teleportation device? 🤣
Would love the ability to be here, there, and everywhere when it comes to meeting people, attending events, and brainstorming. 🔮

Milo: How do you stay up to date with the latest in tools, techniques, and new in the People space?

Collaboration, networking, LinkedIn, one-on-one discussions. 
Human connection, whether virtual or in real life (IRL) does not have a shortcut. In the People space, understanding deeply who your people are, what makes them tick, and what impacts them daily, all play into the approach and initiatives you take in your role. Coffee connections/one-on-one discussions are not a waste of time. They truly allow you to better understand your audience and see smoke before there is fire. Lead with heart, get curious, and have a conversation. 

Do you want to catch the newest live discussions with Claire and other industry experts? Join our growing community on LinkedIn 🌟

Desert Island Stacks with Lauren Ernst SEVENROOMS

Slack is one of the most popular workplace communication apps. It's a convenient way to share information and interact with others.

There's no denying that the standard Slack features are limited when it comes to levelling up your company communication, especially in a distributed work setup.

That's where Slack Apps come into place. A widely known Slack App for virtual team building is Donut. 

Let's take a closer look at Donut for Slack and explore 7 alternatives you should consider if you want to establish a flourishing remote team culture on the shoulders of Slack, including the pros and cons of each.

Broadly speaking, Donut for Slack is an app that helps Slack teams form better relationships by encouraging them to meet new people. The app has a limited free version and allows you to create a private channel where your team can pair up with people in a channel to virtually meet and have a chat. You can also use it to create public channels for casual communications (water cooler chats) with other people who are interested in forming good relationships with each other.

Focus on virtual team activities and engaging new hires

No platform for interactive virtual team activities

If you want to make use of features, such as having various water cooler topics to talk about or using celebration messages for your colleagues, you will need the paid plan which starts from $59 per month on a monthly plan or $49 per month / $588 for the yearly plan. 

There are a few other Slack Apps that you can use as a Donut for Slack alternative. Here are some popular ones we have gathered for you.

1. Donut For Slack Alternative - Shuffl.ai

Shuffl.ai offers a Donut for Slack alternative that has 3 main features:

Bios & Intros - Team members can fill in their bios and the app randomly matches together people with the goal of starting a conversation around their topics of interest

Activities - The team is encouraged to start a group call together

Feedback & Gratitude - The team can share feedback or gratitude on a regular basis

The Slack App has a free tier and clocks in at $50 per month for up to 50 members and more depending on the size of the team.

Simple activities that encourage casual conversations

Create personal connections with bios & topics

No further/web-based virtual team-building games

The Slack App pairs you up, but virtual activities have to be done on other platforms like Zoom or Google Meet

2. Donut For Slack Alternative - Watercoolertrivia.com

The Slack App by Watercoolertrivia.com has weekly quizzes on various topics that are shared in your Slack channel. Once installed, the Slack App can be used for 4 weeks for free (10 responses per question allowed); after the trial period you have to pay $1 per participant per month.

No games or other virtual team activities

Further virtual team activities have to be done on other platforms like Zoom or Google Meet

Interactions focused on a weekly basis might lead to little engagement on the other days of the week

3. Donut For Slack Alternative - Springworks - Trivia


The Slack App Trivia by Springworks offers virtual quizzes, activities, icebreakers, and auto-scheduler for happy hours. Besides the Slack App Trivia, they also have a web platform.

Wide range of virtual games, icebreakers, quizzes, and virtual team activities

Web platform available for video calls, whiteboards, etc.

Games are focused text and word games (not highly interactive)

No public preview of the quiz topics and categories is available

Twine for Slack is an App that sends out a message to your teammates to have a video call via the Twine Web service. It can be used to onboard new hires, or to have regular team video chats.

Low-cost pricing starts at $25 per host (unlimited participants)

No quizzes, games, icebreakers, or other interactive virtual team activities

Snack organizes low-effort one-on-one video meetings with icebreakers that can help your team or conference build a better rapport. The app is currently not approved at the time of writing this article (Nov/22).

You can automate scheduling your meetings with teammates in Slack

6. Donut For Slack Alternative - bored.social

Bored is a social Slack App that allows you to play trivia, icebreakers, and roasting games with colleagues. The Slack App is in Beta and therefore currently free of charge.

In Beta, therefore changes can be made at any time regarding pricing or the product

No dedicated team, as bored is a product of the parent company (Super Gaming)

Yes, that's us! 😁 Doozy for Slack is a great Donut for Slack alternative. In addition to the interactive Slack App with weekly fresh content, we offer a web platform with games for virtual team activities that help you fast-track your new hires into the team, or foster engagement among established colleagues.

Engaging icebreakers, and quizzes directly into your Slack channel

A cool matching system that pairs you up with the perfect person

A web platform where you can plan interactive virtual team activities and games

Customizable games and icebreakers templates

Public quiz library & free plan to test out Doozy

Creating your own templates/quizzes takes time

There are many options besides Donut for Slack

7 Donut For Slack Alternatives You Should Know

Winter is here, and in many places, this means: daylight hours are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping and for many a busy season is ahead. While this time is exciting, but also stressful, it's also a great opportunity to take a step back and reconnect with your team.

We've prepared some of our favourite winter remote team rituals below—these are activities you can integrate easily into your virtual team-building routines.

In case you want to know more about the importance of team rituals, dive into our article "How to create team rituals your co-workers will love".

This remote team ritual can be done on a weekly, or biweekly basis. Invite everyone on your team to join you for a virtual campfire. Create a virtual room and have a video of a campfire running. Ask your team to share movies, stories, songs, and poems that they like to enjoy during the cold days. You can then discuss everything that is related to these topics, like the people that wrote the songs or the director of the movies, or why you think they are popular. You can also have each person bring their favorite winter foods to show and talk about why they like them.

This is a great way to get everyone on your team to open up and share things that they wouldn't normally talk about. This can be a great way for new people to get to know each other better and build stronger relationships.

If you're looking for a fun way to connect with your team members, have a treats & sweets-sharing channel on your chat app. Invite people to post what kind of chocolates and sweets they are enjoying during the cold days. You can vote on the best one, and use it as a way of finding ideas of what to give your team as potential present ideas for holidays or birthdays! You can also use the sweets-sharing channel as an opportunity for people to share their favorite recipes, or even post pictures of what they are making at home. This is a great way to see what everyone has been up to and get inspiration for potential new desserts or treats.

Create a playlist for your favorite holiday songs on any music streaming service, or simply post the songs you love in your team chat app. This is a great way to get everyone into the holiday spirit, and it’s also a fun way to get people involved in the playlist. You can also step it up a notch and even start an “office karaoke” event where everyone gets together and sings along with their favorite songs (not for everyone, we know!)

Start your winter week with fun quizzes and icebreakers that warm up your spirit. You can do this by researching quizzes and icebreakers online and posting them into your chat app. You can also create your own quizzes and icebreakers by coming up with questions and topics that you like.

If you are tight for time and could struggle to create quizzes and icebreakers on your own, just check out Doozy for Slack, where we have 1,000s of quiz questions and hundreds of icebreakers waiting for you and your team to be discovered.

Celebrate winter with creative initiatives

We hope that these winter remote team rituals have inspired you to get creative and make some fun memories with your own team! 

It’s easy to get comfortable in your routine, but these ideas are a great reminder of why we do what we do—and why it can be so rewarding for everyone involved. 

As always, we’d love to hear about your own unique ways of staying connected with your team during the winter months. Feel free to share any ideas that you have with us on LinkedIn at Doozyhq!

Remote Team Rituals For The Winter Season

Connect With Your
Remote
Team

The tools you need to connect, engage
and celebrate your team

Celebrate The Holidays

Intros with Doozy Roulette

Team socials,
made easy

Daily trivia and icebreakers

Create quizzes and icebreakers

One platform for all your team engagement

Team socials

Virtual coffee chats

Daily Slack activities

Holiday countdown

Create quizzes

Create icebreakers

Activities

Analytics

Doozy for Slack

Calendar integrations

Team library

Recurring rituals

Ready to connect your team?

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Remote Team Rituals For The Winter Season

Connect With Your .css-1jfa32o{background:#fdcdae;}Remote Team

The tools you need to connect, engage and celebrate your team

Celebrate The Holidays

.css-ukchu9{margin:0;margin-bottom:4px;font-size:20px;margin-right:8px;}Team socials

Virtual coffee chats

Daily Slack activities

Holiday countdown

Create quizzes

Create icebreakers

Activities

Analytics

Doozy for Slack

Calendar integrations

Team library

Recurring rituals

Ready to connect your team?

Why and how to connect your teams in 2023 and beyond

Desert Island Stacks with Lauren Ernst SEVENROOMS

7 Donut For Slack Alternatives You Should Know

Remote Team Rituals For The Winter Season

Connect With Your
Remote
Team

The tools you need to connect, engage
and celebrate your team

Team socials